


here lies one whose name was writ in water

by lavenderandthyme



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, OT3, POV Steve Rogers, Road Trips, Steve is an adrenaline junkie, but everyone is to some extent, in which the author takes serious liberties, snapshots in time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderandthyme/pseuds/lavenderandthyme
Summary: Peggy had taken one look at him the next day, mainly healed but bruised for England, and sighed.“I need a bloody cigarette - actually make it two - merci, Dernier,”“You and me both, doll,” Bucky said, “You and me both,”-or: Steve's an adrenaline junkie, Natasha's an adrenaline junkie and - you guessed it, Bucky is absolutely the most functional one.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	here lies one whose name was writ in water

**Author's Note:**

> What's this - a piece of work from me that's not Natasha centric - I thought we'd never see the day.
> 
> This wasn't meant to be OT3 but I really couldn't help myself. The Peggy/Steve tag is very minor! 
> 
> The title comes from Keats - enjoy!

After the serum, Steve had found that every now and then he'd get this uncontrollable itch to go out and break a bone or two. It wasn’t that he wanted to be in pain exactly, more that he wanted to feel anything at all -he saw it as merely that he’d spent the majority of his life in some form of pain, and so the absence of it always made him feel like he was forgetting something, and left it at that.

Buck had said it was because he was a masochistic asshole, but Peggy, Peggy had stitched him up without a word, only asking him about it once:

“If this is about proving you’re still human, then it really shouldn’t be - you’re more human than the lot of us combined,”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he’d said, flinching from the sting of the vodka being poured into the nasty cut running down the back of his arm. She’d smiled at him sadly, and never said another word on it.

-

“For Pete’s sake Steve,” and Bucky was furious, as furious as he’d been that night Becca had snuck out to go dancing with Harry Castle and Bucky had caught them, the Castle boy had been left with two black eyes and 3 fewer teeth for his trouble, and Becca had been grounded for, well forever. Steve didn't remember ever seeing Bucky so livid again - until perhaps now, go figure.

Speaking of - Steve was barely clinging onto consciousness. He vaguely remembered the pain of multiple bullets hitting his torso, his ribs should’ve probably been broken, but even if they were they were presumably halfway healed by now. He felt someone slap him around the face. 

“Don’t you dare die on me now, you piece of shit - what the hell are you playing at?” 

Steve’s head spun as he tried to focus his eyes, the pain was white-hot all over, his whole body was electrified and he could feel it, he could feel it all.

“Tryin’ to give Harry Castle a run for his money,” he managed to croak out, pausing to cough midway - the jolt sending a lance of pain through his chest. Bucky barked out a laugh in shock.

“Christ alive _Harry Castle_?” He shook his head, “That bastard is going to look like a pageant dame after I’m through with you, I can tell you that for free,”

Steve laughed, which really wasn’t a good idea - in fact, now he was here, maybe walking into the firing line of 5 krauts wasn’t his smartest moment. At least he could feel something, weirdly enough he felt more alive than ever. 

Dernier said “Putains d’Amerloques” under his breath and then Gabe was digging around for the bullets - and yeah, Steve could feel that all right.

-

He noticed that, every so often, the American soldiers seemed to look at him in shock when he came back wounded - as if they’d truly believed he couldn’t bleed.

He wasn’t doing this to become a martyr, he really wasn’t, but he also couldn’t have people walking around thinking he was invincible.

Sometimes he felt unbeatable, but at the end of the day, his blood still ran deep crimson and somehow, that gave him comfort.

-

“Have I ever told you that you are the stupidest punk I’ve ever met,”

“Maybe once or twice,” Steve replied, groaning when the headache pounded in behind his eyes, “Okay, yeah - not one of my brightest moments,” 

Bucky’s voice was soft when he spoke again.

“Gabe said he saw you run into the trajectory lines on purpose,” 

He shook his head when Steve didn’t reply, tone sharpening.

“You doing this deliberately aren’t you, aren’t you?”

“Look, Buck,”

“No Steve, you look,” he was breathing heavy, and Steve knew he'd reached the point of anger when the adrenaline was kicking in and he was gearing up for a fight. That's how he knew he was in trouble, Bucky only got angry when he decided it was undeniably worth it - which wasn't often at all.

“This is the card you’ve been dealt now - you’ve been given this chance,” he ran his hand through his hair, an anxious habit he’d had since he was a kid. Steve needed a cigarette. “- now you’ve either got to like it or lump it, pal, because this war isn’t fond of giving many second chances - even to god-given assholes such as yourself,” 

Steve watched him as he tried to calm down, and realised that Bucky still saw him as the pint-sized seven-year-old being punched behind the sheds in the playground. After everything he was still the same fragile little thing in his eyes, it irked at Steve a little, pulling behind his chest.

“I just,” Steve sighed, “I just need to feel something sometimes, I feel so goddamn healthy all the time, it puts me on edge,”

Bucky laughed.

“So you’re some kind of screwed up adrenaline junkie?”

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it, yeah,”

“Feeling too healthy,” he shook his head. “Unbelievable,”

-

Peggy had taken one look at him the next day, mainly healed but bruised for England, and sighed.

“I need a bloody cigarette - actually make it two - merci Dernier,” 

“You and me both, doll,” Bucky said, “You and me both,”

-

He’s halfway down the corridor when he concedes and decides that maybe splitting up wasn’t his brightest idea ever. 

He’d already been nicked in the side multiple times, and the front of his uniform was warm and sticky in a way that was never a particularly good sign.

His blood was pounding under his skin, though, and quite frankly he felt like he could shoot sparks from his fingertips. Two more Hydra soldiers rounded the corner and he took them both down with a single punch. Perhaps Bucky was right, maybe it was an adrenaline thing - was this what it was like to be high?

He caught up with the others at the end of the next corridor, a few bumps on them but altogether not so worse-for-wear. Dum-Dum scoffed when Steve ran up to them with an easy smile.

“Have fun, kiddo?”

Bucky turned to take out the soldiers on the walkway above them.

“Do you go out of your way to come up with the stupidest ideas possible-” he said between shots, tossing a grimace at the dark patch at Steve’s hip, “-or did whatever the hell they put in you just amplify your denseness,”

“Well, we’re all in one piece aren’t we?” He felt drunk with it, the way the pain was just dancing on the edge of his awareness.

Dernier said “Il n’a plus toute sa tête,” reloading his gun, and Gabe said

“‘Ain't that the truth,” with a laugh -

\- and then there were a shit-ton more Hydra bastards and where the hell did they get weapons like that anyhow?

-

When he saw Schmidt's true face for the first time, he caught a glimpse of a man who in the pursuit of power, had lost all sense of humanity.

 _This_ , he remembers thinking, _this is what you are most afraid of._

And then Bucky falls off the train, and he realises how very wrong he was.

-

He wonders if actually, he’d always been like this, always ruled by a fierce urge to prove he was something other than what he was at face value.

Maybe Peggy was right, maybe this was about humanity. Some days he questioned that in all the serum gave him - what had it taken away? 

-

After Bucky's fall, all he feels is pain, and it’s nowhere near as electrifying as it once was, but he doesn’t remember a time he was ever that determined in his whole damn life, not even before the army.

-

“One of these days-” Peggy says, and her tone may be light, but Steve can see the genuine fear behind her eyes, “-you’re going to do something so reckless, that not even the devil will be able to save you,”

“It’s a war, Peg,” he shrugged, pinching a perfectly set curl between his fingers with a small smile, “The devil 'ain't saving anyone,”

-

In the end, she was right of course. The devil couldn’t save him from the utter agony of waking up and knowing everything you ever knew was buried six feet under.

-

He should’ve kissed her more when he’d had the chance. Hell, he should've kissed Buck more when he'd had the chance.

-

The Battle of New York forces his mind into a new perspective, and Steve realises that for all its swanky new technology and surface-level beauty, he’d managed to wake up in another war, or at least the beginnings of one. It felt the same, that stillness in the air before a thunderstorm - it hadn’t scared him enough in 1939, it did now.

-

He doesn’t mean to antagonise the Stark kid as much as he does. Tony has the exact same arrogance behind his eyes that Howard did, and it displaces Steve, throws him out of time so that sometimes he looks around and has no idea where he is and all he feels in cold suffocating numbness - like the ice.

He catches the red-headed woman - Agent Romanov, Coulsen had said - watching him sometimes, curious but ultimately with a distinct air of understanding from her, as if she knew exactly how that felt.

-

A week after the defeat of Loki the noise in his head supersedes everything, to the point where he goes and crashes his motorbike into a tree just to get some peace and quiet.

-

“Rogers, you’re the dumbest piece of shit I ever laid my sorry eyes on,”

“Noted, sir”

Romanov coughed.

“Don’t start the backtalk with me, pretty boy, you’re government property now, and they don’t appreciate their property being damaged under my watch,” Fury shot him a glare when Steve opened his mouth, Natasha shook her head the tiniest amount. He took that as a _Not worth it, buddy,_ and shut his mouth.

“Because of this little escapade, the council and I have come to the conclusion you need a babysitter,” he gestured towards Steve, “Agent Romanov, meet your new assignment,”

The woman didn’t take her own advice and rounded on Nick sharply.

“Is this because of Prague? Because if it is, you know for a fact that Barton was the one in the wrong - not me,”

Fury looked at her, expression bored.

“This is absolutely because of Prague, Agent,” He turned down to the papers on his desk, she was breathing heavily, “Non-negotiable, we’ll be in touch,”

She spun around and shot an icy glare at Steve, walking past him and out the room without a word. He shot a wary glance at Fury.

“I won’t lie to you, this is more for her than for you,” the man said without looking up, Steve raised his eyebrows, “Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, I meant what I said, you’re a dumb asshole,”

“So I’ve been told,”

Nick looked up at him oddly for a second. Steve nodded at him, said “Sir”, and turned and left.

*

Romanov was leaning against his motorcycle when he got downstairs, apologetic air around her.

“Quite the death glare you’ve got there,” he said, grinning as she grimaced.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” 

“Don’t worry about it, understandable, given the circumstances,”

Her grimace turned into a grin of her own.

“Was that an insult to your company or mine?” 

“I guess we’ll soon find out,” he jerked his head up the street, “You like coffee?” 

She looked at him for a moment, her grin fading slightly.

“Maybe some other time,” 

He nods, not disappointed, just curious. In his head, he hears his mother say: _sometimes people are put in your life as puzzles to figure out, and other times you’re the puzzle,_ and he thinks yeah, he would like to figure Agent Romanov out. 

She moves out of his way and begins to walk back towards the building, stopping halfway and turning back, wringing her hands.

“Hazelnut,” she says in what he has half a mind to call shyly, but she didn’t seem like the type of woman to be shy - reserved felt more accurate. “-I like hazelnut lattes,” 

And then she turns and walks in before he can reply, and Steve makes a mental note to pick her up one the next time he happens to be in a coffee shop.

*

She turns up at his apartment a week later, knocking lightly on his door.

“Montanna,” she says when he opens the door, holding out a takeaway coffee cup to him. He has the faint urge to question where she might’ve gotten his address, but it seems fruitless in the grand scheme of things, so he takes the cup and moves to let her in.

“Montanna?”

“Montanna,” she repeats, moving her sunglasses to the top of her head - her hair was a lighter shade of red, more coppery, it suited her, “Agent Hill - you remember Maria?”

He nods.

“Well she’s caught some errant signals similar to the alien tech from last month,” she shrugs, “Could be nothing, but worth checking out - you up for it?”

He takes a sip of his coffee, black with one sugar like he always takes it, it startles him a little that she’d known, but then again he assumed she knew a lot more about him than she let on.

“Doesn’t sound very babysitter friendly to me,”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Suddenly imbued with a sense of authority are we?” 

He shrugs.

“I just don’t want to step on too many toes,” 

She coughs in that way she did when she wanted to cover up a smile.

“Huh,” she said, shaking her head a little, face furrowed in confusion for a second, “Well I can assure you no toes will be stepped on, we have full permission from the big boss himself - did you want to see a written note?”

He chuckled.

“No that’s fine, ma'am, I believe you,”

She grins at him, bright and fierce in the July sunshine filtering in through his kitchen window. He's almost taken aback by it.

“Natasha,” she says, eyes sparkling in amusement, “I think you’ve reached the point where you can call me Natasha now,”

“Right,” he said with a nod, “So, Natasha, when do we leave?”

-

Montanna turned out to be nothing, in the end, but Steve enjoyed the drive more than anything. He’d forgotten how quiet it was in his head when he had the windows rolled down and he was away from the city.

Natasha seemed calmer too - more peaceful, he sometimes turned and caught her with her eyes closed and face upturned to the sun, her window rolled all the way down, a soft smile on her face.

He realises when he sees her like this, how human she actually is, and wonders if this is what the soldiers noticed in him when they'd seen him bleed in the war.

-

They’re deep in Indiana farm country when a little voice pops into his head and reminds him that Bucky’s family had migrated from here at the turn of the 17th century. It shocks him how the thought walks so confidently across his mind and sets up camp front and centre. He sits up sharply with the jolt of it, his chest tightening. Natasha turns her head to look at him, hands tight on the wheel. Steve got the impression that driving in open land like this made her antsy, she certainly seemed a little sharper than she had when he'd been driving.

“What is it?” she said, her voice steady but a distinct air of anxious interest in the way she switched her gaze back and forth between the road and him.

“Nothing - I, I just remembered something, that’s all” 

The line of her shoulders relaxed a little, she raised an eyebrow at him and turned down the radio.

“Anything interesting?” 

“Not to you, I’m sure,”

“Hey!” she said, not upset but lips pouted in a way that made his eyes turn up, “Try me,”

The sun was setting, at a point where the orange curled off the copper of her hair, catching in the green of her eyes. She was beautiful - there was no denying it, just Bucky’s type too.

He smiled.

“My best friend came from this part of the country originally, I’d forgotten - the farmland just reminded me,”

He swallowed, turned away from where her gaze was still beating into him. She slowed the car to almost a stop and threw it into a U-Turn.

“What are you doing?”

She shrugged. 

“You ever been to Mark Twain National Forest?” 

“Missouri?” he said, faintly amused, “No, can’t say that I have,”

“Always wanted to go, there was a picture of it in this magazine when I first got to SHIELD, kind of became a thing for me, to go there one day,” she flashed him a smile, “No time like the present,”

“Are you always like this?” he asks, his mouth turning up into a smile of its own.

“Full of the greatest ideas? Why yes, yes I am,” 

He shakes his head at her, a small part of him wonders if they’re more alike than he first thought, perhaps she got the rush out of impulse decisions - she certainly seemed lighter all of a sudden.

“Can I ask you something?” 

Her hands tighten a little on the wheel.

“If you’d like,” her voice is quiet, almost lost in the open air.

“Is Fury trying to keep us out of trouble in the city by sending us on a road trip?”

She laughs out loud, precious and rare and full of brightness.

“You know,” she muses, eyes wide with amusement, “-that’s probably exactly what he’s doing, damn him,” 

*

“That’s the thing with making a thing out of a place,” she says, turning around in the middle of the forest, turning her head up to look at the tree-tops, “You finally get there and realise that it's no Mecca but just a bog-standard forest in Missouri,”

He looked around with a sigh, it was just exactly that.

“Well,” he said, running his hand down the side of a tree, feeling the bark catch on his palm “-I think it’s a very nice forest,”

She scoffed, face still turned upwards.

“Don’t try it, Rogers,”

He raised his hands, smiling gently.

“I mean it!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighs, walking back towards him, “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m starving - fancy some food?” 

She walks off before he can reply, and Steve lets her go. He knew that feeling of having a life’s worth of dreams dashed. His mother, God rest her soul, used to say - _You can’t build a house out of hopes and dreams, my boy_ \- but as he watches Natasha traipse back towards the car, he thinks that you can build a life on them when you have no other option.

-

“Hey, you knew Howard Stark didn’t you?” she asks out the blue one afternoon, West Virginia countryside a blur behind her.

He coughs.

“Yeah,” 

“Is Tony-?”

“Exactly,” 

She hums, a faint smile on her face as she lets her sunglasses fall back over her eyes.

“Thought he might be,”

-

When SHIELD falls, the itch seems to settle in under his bones in a way it hadn't done since the war.

They’re in the car on their way to Sam’s, he really couldn’t think of anywhere else and he was too old not to trust his gut instincts, he seemed like a good guy - but then so had Pierce, anyway - Natasha is falling in and out of consciousness and the sting from the burn running up Steve’s left side is the only thing keeping him focused on the road.

He turns to find her eyes open, a little clearer, she moves to sit up with a hiss.

“Okay?” he says, voice gentle to not hurt her head, she nods, eyes scrunched in a grimace.

“Where are we going?”

Her voice is scratchy, grating against the hum of the engine.

“To a friend’s - don’t worry, he seems like someone I could trust,"

“You do seem to have the better judge of character, out of the two of us,”

“Natasha -”

She sits up fully, cutting him off with a raised hand. Her eyes were bright, but she didn’t look so feverish anymore, he let out a breath.

She furrowed her eyebrows when she noticed the deep crimson stain along his arm from where he caught it on some shrapnel, he scoffed.

“He bleeds,” 

She smiles gently, resting her head back for a moment, eyes shut as she tries to clear her headache.

“They used to look at me the same way - at SHIELD - like they’d expected me to be made of marble.”

Her eyes are very green when they look at him, a little startled in the driver’s seat. She smiles, shutting her eyes again.

“Shared life experience,” she says in a singsong tone that makes him laugh. “Hey - did you ever call that cute nurse?”

He shakes his head, confused.

“No, I’ve been a bit preoccupied if you hadn’t noticed,”

“Oh!” she shakes her head, “Well - it’s for the best, I suppose - she worked for SHIELD,”

He curses. She smiles wider.

-

"-would you trust me to do it?"

"I would now"

-

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

-

Natasha is as white as a sheet. Steve hasn’t felt pain like this since he lost him the first time.

It’s Bucky, his Bucky - alive, but trying to kill him.

Fate, he thinks, truly has it out for him.

-

His whole body is on fire.

He doesn’t think there’s a single bone that isn’t broken and he’s sinking down, down - and of course, it would be that he dies just as he’s given his Bucky back.

-

“Steve,” Sam’s voice cuts through his haze, and when Steve looked over the man was looking at him strangely.

“I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, man, but you need to stop torturing yourself over this,”

Steve shook his head,

“No Sam, I could’ve done more - I can do more”

“Like what?” Sam said, watching him steadily “Steve you need to stop blaming yourself - frankly, you’re worrying me, and Natasha,”

“You’ve spoken to Natasha?”

“She’s checked in once or twice,” He paused. Steve furrowed his eyebrows, “Look, the pair of you have enough issues combined to start a mental health facility, but apart from that, she’s fine - coming back next week,”

Steve raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything, wondered if she was ever going to say anything to him or just show up out of the blue like always.

He reaches for the file again.

-

Natasha shows up at his place on a Thursday evening, tucked away in a quaint little summer dress that does nothing to help keep his anger intact, sheepish smile in tow. He has half a mind to shut the door in her face.

“How kind of you to grace me with your presence,” he said flatly, moving to let her in. Her smile drops.

“Don’t be petulant Steve,” her hair is longer and darker than it was the last time he saw her, and when she took her sunglasses off he noticed the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose that hadn’t been there when he saw her last.

“I’m not,” he said through his teeth, shutting the front door a little sharper than was perhaps necessary.

“Look,” she says, obviously forcing an air of calmness. She didn’t want to fight, but he’s itching for it, perhaps it is petulance - or maybe he’s just been static for too long. “I’d already burdened you with enough, I just needed to not burden you with anymore for a little while,”

“Trusting someone isn't the same as burdening them, Nat,” 

She looks a little startled at that, and Steve feels the anger slip from his fingertips.

“I was worried about you,”

She smiles at him gently, gesturing down her body.

“Peachy keen, see?”

She did look healthy, there was something infectiously brighter about her.

“Why Sam?” he asked, leaning on the kitchen counter towards her.

“He’s very sweet,” she said with a bright smile, tilting her head a little, “-Doesn’t ask any questions, either,”

“Yeah, that’s because he already knows all of the answers,”

“Oh!” she says, laughing lightly, “I hadn’t thought of that, yes I suppose he would,”

She looks at him curiously for a moment, nose scrunched up slightly in a manner quite unlike herself, and then she’s walking around the counter and going up on her tiptoes to hug him, properly hug him, arms threaded around his neck.

“How are you,” she says quietly, head resting on his shoulder as his arms squeeze around her waist a little. He sighs, she pulls back enough to look at him.

“Not a dicky bird,” 

She smiles at him a little sadly, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his face, her fingertips a little cold.

“He probably just needs time, Steve - everything is falling down around him right now,” She pulls back, he has a faint urge to draw her back in, to keep her there - he lets his hands fall.

“Anyway, I have something that might help you, I found out some incredibly interesting information on my little sabbatical, well- depends on your view, actually,”

*

“Hang on, - what?”

“I know, right,” she was lying back on his sofa like she was in some sort of therapy session, he perched on the arm closest to her feet and passed a mug of coffee down to her. She sat up, taking it from him with a smile, she took a sip and looked up at him in shock.

“What is this,”

He blanked. 

“Hazelnut - you said-”

“That was ages ago, though” 

He shrugged and she laughed, shaking her head at him and scooting back to make room for him next to her.

She sighed.

“This would happen to us, wouldn’t it,” she said, eyes unfocused, he watched her for a moment, realising just how normal it felt to see her in his apartment.

“To both be doe-eyed over the same guy and not even realise - yes I suppose that it is quite fitting to our brand,” 

She blinks, turning back to look at him, her eyes incredibly vivid.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Course,”

“During the War - were you guys-?”

He shakes his head.

“To be fair, I think we always knew?” he pauses, swallows, “We’d always been like that, though - but no, I was far too in love with Peggy,”

His chest feels tight, but she nods at him with that gentle smile of hers and he notices, not for the first time, how quiet she makes everything seem in his head.

-

They’re in Prospect Park when he finally sees Bucky again - and it’s actually his Bucky - well, sort of.

Anyway, Natasha gets a phone call from god-knows-who and walks off to take it, leaving Steve sitting on the bench with his coffee cup. He’s alone, and then, Bucky is sitting next to him.

“Hi, Steve,”

Steve freezes, looks at him with wide eyes for a moment and then shakes his head and curses, quite creatively might he add.

"Feel better for that, do you?"

"Yes, actually," Steve says stiffly, Bucky sighs.

“Thank you for, for giving me time,” Buck says, smiling at him tentatively, “I was in about 3 different minds at once - it wasn’t pretty,”

“I won’t lie to you, Buck, it wasn’t for lack of trying otherwise - but Sam-”

“The man on the bridge,”

“Yes, exactly - he and Tasha managed to convince me to give you time to come to me, just about,”

He returns Bucky’s smile. He furrowed his eyebrows, sitting up a little.

“The woman - Natasha, does she-?” he draws off.

“Remember you?” Steve follows, “Yes, she got her memories back last month, wasn't particularly pretty either, by all accounts,”

Bucky nods with a cough.

“Right,” he swallows, “Fantastic,”

“Is it?” Steve says, vaguely amused but more than a little concerned. Behind him, he hears Natasha’s voice round the corner.

“Steve, that was Shar- Christ,” she freezes, phone in hand just next to Steve when she spots Bucky. “Well, never mind, then,” she finishes briskly.

Bucky nods at her.

“Natalya,”

It's like something snaps, she grips her phone tightly and gritted her teeth, Steve promptly sits back and invests all his interest in his coffee.

(He thought it was funny that he’d once believed she’d sourced her adrenaline off of impulse when really it was her temper. She was extremely collected for the majority of the time, but when she was angry, the whole world was going to know about it. Steve knew first-hand just how frightening she could be when she was furious, he realised that it was exactly the same with Bucky, something bridged in his mind, clearing his perspective slightly.)

“You,” she hissed, moving past Steve to point in Bucky’s chest, “Do not get to call me that after the stunts you’ve pulled,”

He grimaces, Steve takes a very large mouthful of his drink.

“You know,” she continues, “When Mila gave me that little pill to give me back all my memories I thought it would clear things up, not push me further into the dark - I mean, 1927? Was that not something anyone thought to mention?”

Bucky curses, Steve chokes on his coffee.

“What do you mean, 1927?”

She either ignores him or doesn’t hear him.

“And don’t even get me started on Paris, what the honest-to-god fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” he said dryly, “That’s the problem, I never was thinking around you,”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” She scoffs, “Last time I checked you made a move on me first, buddy,”

Steve moves to stand up, needing to be anywhere else, but they both bark out “Steve, sit down,” without turning their heads.

“Oh, hell,” he mutters, sitting down and staring ahead blankly.

“Don’t be a child, Natalya, we’re too old to be having this fight,”

“Yes, James” she seethes, Steve blanches at the name, “Some of us older than we thought,” 

“1927!” Steve exclaims, his brain finally catching up with him, his smile drops, “Wait, 1927?”

“Yes, Steve, just another funny little coincidence to add to our list,”

This time Bucky said, “Oh, hell,” with a grimace, “Does this list happen to have me on it?”

Steve shot him a sheepish nod, Bucky groaned, Natasha was still breathing heavily, eyes wild.

“Look, Tasha,” Steve starts, voice soft, “To be fair to him -”

“Don't you dare call me that right now, Steve” She snaps, Steve sits back promptly, a silent equivalent to _yes ma'am._

She sighs, and her voice is wet when she speaks again,

"No," she seems to retreat in on herself a little, “No, it wasn’t fair when they took him from me, he doesn’t get fairness from me now,”

Bucky says “Oh, Darlin’,” in that soft tone he only used when Becca had been really distraught, and he was pulling Nat into his lap and she was sobbing softly into his neck, her left hand reaching out behind her to clasp Steve’s.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, my love,” Bucky says into her hair, and turns to look at Steve, eyes bluer than ever and steady in the morning light, “I promise,”

-

“Well,” Bucky drawls, eyes tracking the treetops, “It’s a very lovely forest, darlin’,”

“Exactly what I said,” Steve said, pinching Natasha in the side, she yelps and slaps his hand away.

“Oh, come off it,” She says indignantly, not hurt - more just that, indignant, “-this is a very special place for me and the least you could do is respect that.”

“Hang on just a minute - verbatim - ‘It’s just a bog-standard forest’,” Steve says, grabbing her waist to pull her in, dropping a kiss on her cheek, Bucky sniggers suddenly up at the treetops.

“Steve ever tell you about that time he got shot out of a tree?” Bucky mused.

Steve groaned, Natasha's interest piqued significantly.

“No, can’t say that he did,” 

“Oh!” Bucky said joyfully, walking over and curling under Steve’s other arm, “Well let me tell you-”

*

Natasha laughs all the way back to the car.

*

“Christ,” she gasps, another fit of giggles taking over her, Steve would be mad if he didn't find it such a good look on her, “You are never living that down again, Steve,” 

She leans forward into the divider of the front seats and kisses the corner of his mouth with another snigger, Bucky says, “‘Atta girl,” and smiled gently at the Indiana countryside around them.

He rolls down the passenger side window and lets his right arm hang out the window. No need to worry about uneven tans now.

“My grandparents lived out here, moved to New York when they had my Da,”

“Oh!” Natasha exclaimed gently, “Of course!”

Bucky looks at her oddly, she grins and leans over to kiss him.

“Steve and I had a getting-to-know-each-other road trip,”

Bucky snorted, and Steve said:

“If I recall we shared approximately 2 facts each, and one of mine wasn’t even about me,”

Natasha sighed dreamily, ignoring him.

“Those were the days,” she pouts, “-Oh to be 23 again,”

“Christ,” Steve says, coughing to hide a laugh, “-here we go,”

“But, darlin’, you weren’t 23,” Bucky reminds her and gets slapped on the shoulder for his trouble.

-

“So, Natasha is actually 80-odd and Bucky’s ex-but-now-not-ex-again-girlfriend?” Sam says, his voice tinny through the phone.

“Exactly,” 

“And you’re -?”

“Yes, well sort of,”

“Right,”

There’s a pause, and because it’s Sam the awkwardness is gone in a second.

“Well,” he says with a chuckle, “Does this mean I can ask Sharon out?”

-

“Are you kidding?” Natasha says incredulously when he tells her, “I spend months - and I mean months - setting you two up and then it’s Sam?”

“Well,- ” Steve snaps the strap of her bra against her shoulder, “-you don’t seem so put-out by it yourself,”

She sticks her tongue at him and Bucky - lying face down on the bed, still not a morning person after everything - says:

“You do know she’s Peggy’s niece, right?” - Natasha pitches her head forward into Steve’s chest and groans, and Steve is smug for the rest of the week.

-

He still has bad days - they all do, really you know it’s bad when the brainwashed amputee is the most functional one - but instead of wrapping his motorcycle around a tree where he would’ve once, he spends the day on the sofa watching eighties movies with Nat, or he and Bucky go to Coney Island to read, but sometimes that gets a bit loud.

Most of the time though, Steve just lives in blessed quiet.

-

“You wrapped your bike around a tree? Rogers, I swear on my mother’s life I will kill you myself, you arrogant prick,”

-

More often than not, he and Nat come back with a few more wounds than was strictly necessary, and each time Bucky shakes his head at their dishevelled appearances.

“Damn me,-” he says, going to fetch the medkit from under the sink, “-for having such a thing for dense idiots,”

He sighs and grabs Tasha’s arm to check her injuries first, muttering under his breath.

-

“Hang on,” Natasha said, breaking away from Bucky’s mouth, eyes wide and dress messed up from Steve’s hands, “So you’ve been scolding us this entire time, but you got in a fight with a boy for wanting to dance with your sister - who was seventeen at the time?”

“Hey,” Bucky said, pushing up on to his elbows, “Harry Castle is not some innocent lamb in this tale - I can tell you now he was not looking at her in a way that said he just wanted to dance,”

“Yeah, to be fair Tash, Harry Castle was an asshole,'' Steve said against her neck, trailing kisses up towards her jaw.

“Right,” she sighs, “-that’s all very well and good then,” - and leant down to kiss Bucky again.

-

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
